1. Field of the Invention
The present invention provides an optical module and a projector apparatus comprising the same, and more particularly, to an optical module and a three-dimensional (3D) projector apparatus that use a curved reflecting component to simplify the optical path structure and to reduce the cost.
2. Descriptions of the Related Art
Solid-state light sources such as light emitting diodes (LEDs) and laser diodes (LDs) have advantages of a long service life, a small volume and being mercury-free. However, the brightness of these solid-state light sources is still much lower than that of conventional high-pressure mercury lamps when they are used as light sources in projector apparatuses. Therefore, although the use of the solid-state light sources have become very popular, they have not completely replaced conventional high-pressure mercury lamps in projector apparatuses.
On the other hand, for a light source in a projector apparatus to emit light of the three primary colors (i.e., red, blue and green) so that light coupling can be accomplished by a light coupling assembly disposed in the projector apparatus, the following two ways are usually adopted in the prior art to output the light of the three primary colors: in the first way, a solid-state light source is used to emit a white light, then the white light propagates through a color wheel with a red region, a blue region and a green region to be transformed into a red light, a blue light and a green light respectively in different time periods, and finally the red light, the blue light and the green light are coupled for output. In the second way, a blue laser as a solid-state light source is used to excite phosphors coated on a rotary wheel to generate a red light, a blue light, and a green light or a yellow light, and then the blue light from the blue laser is coupled with the red light, the green light or the yellow light to obtain the desired image.
However, although both ways can use a light beam emitted by a solid-state light source to generate a red light, a blue light, a green light or a yellow light to achieve light coupling, they have a low efficiency and can only provide relatively divergent light rays due to limitations of the inherent optical properties of the light source. Particularly, to split the light to obtain a stereoscopic image in a single projector apparatus, a rotary filtering wheel and a color wheel are rotated synchronously to provide split images of different wavelengths to the left eye and the right eye respectively. Then, the left-eye image received by the left eye and the right-eye image received by the right eye are combined into a stereoscopic image.
However, it is difficult for the rotary filtering wheel of conventional stereoscopic imaging technologies to rotate completely synchronously with the color wheel in terms of both the rotation speed and the rotation angle. Accordingly, it is important to solve the problem of asynchronism between the rotary filtering wheel and the color wheel.